Son of a Beard

by Lani Lynn Vale

  Motherfuckers.

  A snicker from my side had me turning to see the girl that I’d walked in with tonight.

  The same girl who looked like she wanted to be here about as much as I did…which wasn’t much at all.

  I was now regretting my position as best man, and if my mother wasn’t here to witness me abandoning my duties, I might have left already.

  That girl, though… the brunette with the wavy hair in the dress that was painted onto an ass to die for? Well, she almost made it worth it.

  Almost.

  The only thing that would turn my frown upside down was a goddamned beer. So it figured that the one wedding in the history of all weddings that needed alcohol the most didn’t have it.

  IE, this one.

  “I think it’s time to give up the microphone, T,” I heard said from my side.

  I turned to find my cousin, Eugene, looking at me with a thin sheen of sweat dotting his brow.

  “What?” I asked. “You wanted to give a best man speech?”

  I was an asshole.

  My cousin, Eugene, had a fear of crowds.

  For him to even attempt to get the microphone away from me took balls on his part, but I was one pissed off man, so I wasn’t giving him the mic, even though he did ask nicely.

  “N-no,” he shook his head adamantly. “I was t-trying to…”

  He stopped speaking when I held up my hand. “Then let me finish.”

  He sighed and backed away, turning his apologetic eyes to his brother, Kenneth, and then went back to his seat.

  Kenneth punched him in the arm the moment he sat down, and I wanted to punch him in the face.

  Little fucker.

  He needed to go fuck himself.

  It wasn’t his brother’s job to do the dirty work, and I wasn’t stopping until I either got an apology or was kicked out.

  And lucky for everyone here watching the show, he would never offer me an apology.

  Because offering an apology would be admitting that he’d fucked up, and Kenneth Lee Reacher didn’t admit when he was wrong.

  Which was always his downfall.

  And me, Truth Alan Reacher, well, I was going to make sure he saw the error in his ways.

  Chapter 2

  Sadly, I’m all out of damns. However, if you’re interested in a flying fuck, I have a few.

  -Verity’s secret thoughts

  Verity

  I didn’t want to be here.

  In fact, I wanted to be here about as much as I wanted to have my left nipple placed in a nipple clamp and twisted right the hell off.

  But nobody asked me what I thought.

  Nobody cared that I didn’t want to be a witness at the wedding I was currently attending.

  The wedding that I’d painstakingly planned, and then was told two weeks ago that I was no longer needed as the bride, because, you know, brides are apparently interchangeable.

  Oh, but my mother had kept the account, because she was a businesswoman after all.

  Money was money, honey.

  The sound of my mother’s annoying voice made my hands clench.

  Then the man started talking, and the breath left my body.

  Not because he took my breath away, but because he said what I was thinking.

  “Fucking slut.”

  My eyes snapped up and over, and it was then I saw the man that I’d walked in beside two hours before.

  No one at this entire wedding looked like they wanted to be here less than me. Except that man. He looked like wanted to be here nearly as much as I did, which was not at all.

  This tall, dark, and dangerous man with his brown hair buzzed clear down to his scalp, and those stunningly bright green eyes that looked like they could see straight down to my soul.

  Then there was the scruffy beard framing straight white teeth, not to mention his tattoos.

  An entire sleeve of tattoos extended down his left arm, starting at some point I couldn’t see beneath his black t-shirt, and trailing all the way down to his wrist where his big ass Luminox watch rested. A watch that I knew cost a whack because I’d bought my father the same one last year for Christmas.

  He also wore it wrong, too. Like my dad. He had the watch face on the inside of his wrist, so all he would have to do to check the time was turn his palm to face him and he’d be able to see it perfectly.

  According to my father, it took a whole lot less effort to check the time.

  Not that I’d ever disagree with him, but at the time I’d thought he was weird.

  Now, seeing it on this man, I realized that maybe it did take less effort.

  “Ummm,” I finally tore my eyes away from his mouth. “What?”

  The muscles in his arms flexed as he turned only his head to face me…yeah, those muscles were just icing on the cake.

  “I said, ‘Fucking Slut,’” he repeated. “The bride. She’s a fucking slut.”

  I blinked, then I nodded in understanding. “Why yes, yes she is.”

  I would know. I’d walked in on her husband to be, now my ex fiancé, and her fucking on my bed. On my family quilt. Next to my goddamned cat. After the dress fitting from hell. And after he told me the engagement was over, but apparently I needed a visual.

  The man’s mouth twitched, and I had the weirdest urge to run my fingers through his magnificent beard.

  “What’s your name?” he asked, breaking into my thoughts.

  “Verity,” I answered immediately. “What’s yours?”

  He smiled.

  “Truth.”

  “My name means Truth,” I informed him.

  “I know,” he answered. “That’s why I smiled.”

  “Two peas in a pod,” I shrugged.

  He snorted. “So…did he cheat on you?”

  He gestured toward the groom, who was busy feeding his new wife a piece of the cake that I’d picked out.

  “Yes,” I replied just as bluntly as he’d posed the question. “In fact, that’s my wedding cake that they’re eating. Oh, and that wedding dress? Also mine.”

  He turned sharply to stare at me, trying to figure out if I was being serious or not.

  “Then why the fuck are you here?” he asked.

  I sighed.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Not now. Not when I could potentially break down and cry in front of that asshole.

  He didn’t deserve to see my tears.

  “How about I take you for a ride on my bike, and we find somewhere to fuck?”

  My mouth dropped open.

  “And then you can tell me what that asshole did to you, and I’ll share what the slut did to me.”

  I nearly choked on the air I inhaled, if such a thing were even possible.

  “Uhhh,” I hesitated. “Okay?”

  I wasn’t normally so slutty, but hell, if you saw this man, you’d have jumped at the chance to do him, too!

  He grinned, showing off those perfectly white teeth again and I nearly moaned.

  “All right, who’s ready to hear the speeches?” my mother called excitedly over the intercom.

  That was said over the loud speakers at the front of the room, and I knew it was a good time to leave.

  “Ready now?”

  Did he sound hopeful?

  I nodded sharply, and then stood and offered him my hand.

  He stood too, took my hand, and started to lead me outside.

  But then someone stopped him before we could make it to freedom.

  Shelley, Kenneth’s sister, had her hand on his arm.

  “Don’t you want to give your speech?” Shelley batted her eyes at Truth.

  The words weren’t said maliciously, but I knew they were meant to hurt, all the same.

  “Oh, yeah,” Truth snapped his fingers like he’d completely forgot. “I guess I’d better do that right quick, now shouldn’t I?”

  Shelley’s eyes widened
, and she reached for his hand, but he was already gone, heading straight to the DJ booth that I’d also had a part in picking out.

  “Give me the microphone,” he snapped at the DJ.

  The DJ, not a stupid man by any means, nodded mutely and held it out to him.

  “Thanks,” he muttered, before turning to face the room.

  I moved to put the wall at my back, allowing me to see both Truth and my ex fiancé and his new wife, all the while waiting to see what the man I’d just met was about to do.

  I knew it would be good…I just didn’t have any idea how good.

  “How’s everyone doing tonight?” he asked into the mic.

  The crowd around the new happy couple all turned to stare at Truth, and I pressed my lips together.

  “Where do you think you’re going, young lady?” my mother hissed. “You have to stay here for the remainder of the night, or you’re not getting paid.”

  I gritted my teeth and turned to my mother, hoping that my fury at her for forcing me to attend didn’t show on my face.

  “I was only obligated to stay an hour, per your contract,” I told her. “Nothing else was ever said about me doing anything past my obligation.”

  “You will not get paid. I swear it. If you leave, all that money is mine.”

  All the money wasn’t hers.

  All the money was both of ours.

  I was the silent partner that helped fund my mother’s business when she started to go under. I was the one to bust my ass day in and day out to make sure that everything was perfect for this wedding.

  And I was also the one that had been here only out of obligation.

  So no, I knew my legal rights. I owned fifty-one percent of the company. I didn’t have to do a goddamn thing, and I’d still make money.

  Why? Because that’d been the stipulation when my mom had come to me about this business opportunity in the first place. I offer the money and the business sense, and she does all the legwork.

  Even though I’d done the majority of the legwork for this particular wedding.

  See, I had a trust fund, and my mother did not.

  Why? Because my mother had already blown through hers.

  However, when I’d turned twenty-one and my great-grandmother had died, leaving me over two million dollars, I’d invested my money like a smart girl who had a money hungry mother to show her everything not to do.

  And in the seven years it’d been invested, I now had over six million dollars.

  Not that I dressed or acted like it.

  In fact, I still had my job as a customer service representative for the Mooresville newspaper.

  Why? Because I couldn’t quit.

  Literally, each and every time I tried to find the courage to quit, my mother would pull a stunt and I’d use work as an excuse.

  It was a vicious cycle. And, one day, I would be able to get out of the dead-end job and do my passion, which was blowing glass, for a living. I would be able to do it all day long, and take long naps in the middle of the afternoon.

  But until I finally found the courage to stick up to my mother, I was stuck.

  Well and truly stuck.

  Like right now, for instance.

  I wanted to leave.

  The man had literally taken me by the hand, and here I was standing next to my mother listening to her bad mouth me.

  “One man’s used up slut is another man’s brand new bride.”

  My mouth dropped open as those words came from that sexy mouth I’d been admiring all night, and I did the worst possible thing that I could do at that moment.

  Giggle.

  “Verity,” my mother hissed. “Don’t you dare.”

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “Leave me alone,” I growled under my breath. “I can laugh if I want to.”

  “Not when they’re paying a half a million dollars for this wedding, and I’m the one that’ll get the bad review if this goes south.”

  My gut clenched. “You spent how much?”

  Her mouth thinned. “You heard me.”

  “You don’t still have my credit cards, do you?” I gasped, worry etching my face.

  She closed her mouth and shrugged.

  “If I find one single cent of mine paying for this wedding, I will ruin you,” I crowded her. “I have no loyalty to you. I have absolutely none. Trust me. You burned every single bridge that would ever make you a mother to me, so I will lose not a single second of sleep turning you into the police for fraud, and filing a freakin’ lawsuit against you if I have to…and I’ll leave you a negative review on Facebook.”

  She gasped, “You wouldn’t.”

  Seriously? Out of all the things I’d said, it was the negative review on Facebook that caused her to gasp in outrage?

  “All right, ladies and gentlemen. I’d just like you all to remember that you should definitely watch your wives and husbands around these two. They’re a fine pair, and they don’t care if you’re family or not. Nobody’s relationship is safe around them.”

  Those words sounded in my ears, but I didn’t take my eyes off of my mother as she stared at me in scorn.

  “I didn’t use your credit cards, but you should probably call and cancel them, because I know for a fact that you still have everything stored in your joint account on Amazon, where a lot of it came from.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Though, I had nothing to do with that. The bride provided it all for me, and said her ‘fiancé’ gave her free reign with his account.”

  My mouth thinned. “I’ll take care of that.”

  And boy, would I.

  I was going to go to the police department tomorrow and file charges against the woman.

  And if I could sneak in any other charges while I was at it, I’d do that, too.

  “So, in conclusion, I would like you all to know that I have a motorcycle for sale. The seat’s gone, but the rest of it is in perfectly working order,” the man I was about to leave with, said.

  I found my second smile of the night.

  I’d heard the story while I was listening to my mother, but I didn’t expect him to sell his motorcycle.

  I presumed he was going to just replace the seat.

  Obviously not.

  ***

  Truth

  Twelve hours later

  Vegas wasn’t a good idea.

  I wasn’t really sure how we ended up here, either.

  I think it was actually the airline’s fault.

  I mean, honestly, why the hell did they offer flights to Vegas at all hours of the night?

  And why the fuck did they sell tickets to drunk people? Because that was what Verity and I were…drunk as skunks.

  We were in Vegas now and drinking even more.

  Apparently, it wasn’t illegal to have open containers while walking down the strip in Vegas...or if it was, none of the cops stopped us.

  Then again, I’d seen quite a few other things that were clearly more pressing than two individuals with open containers.

  Such as the man riding his unicycle naked, yelling something about how everyone was going to die since tonight was the end of the world.

  Then there was the old lady with her tits tucked into her pants running around with a ‘Kill all extraterrestrials’ flag.

  That one had been more traumatizing than any war I’d ever seen.

  I could deal with blood, guts and gore, no problem. I apparently could not handle an overweight elderly woman with her nipples poking out where her vagina should be, though.

  “There!” the woman at my side demanded, smacking me on the arm.

  I turned to survey the chapel that she wanted to enter.

  “That’s a chapel,” I told her. “Why do you want to go there?”

  “Because I just saw two motorcycles pull in, and I want to know why.”

  And that was how, in a completely unplanned, surprise turn of events, we got married by a
couple of bikers.

  I was still dressed exactly in what I’d been wearing at the previous wedding I’d attended. A pair of faded blue jeans that I used to work in, a black t-shirt, biker boots, and my cut.

  The woman at my side, however, had changed.

  Into a strapless number made purely of leather, that did fucking amazing things for her already banging body.

  Full, perky tits spilled out of the top of the dress.

  It hugged the curves of her rounded hips before coming to a stop at the top of her tanned thighs.

  Yeah, I wasn’t completely blaming the alcohol for the reason I married her.

  I would, however, blame the way she was completely murdering that dress with how she filled it.

  I didn’t normally go for a full-figured woman.

  But this woman, my God was she stunning.

  She was absolutely, drop-dead gorgeous, and I let my dick do the thinking.

  Just like the way I let my dick do the thinking two hours later as we finally made it into our hotel room.

  I did, however, manage to cover my cock in a condom before I sank completely inside of her.

  And it continued to do the thinking as I fucked her mercilessly. On her back. On her knees. On our sides.

  Then she got on top, and I lost all ability to think.

  We’d never actually managed to get her dress off of her before I was inside of her.

  What we did manage to do, though, was get her panties off, and her breasts above the top of her dress.

  And when she was riding me, her breasts were bouncing this way and that.

  Her long, thick brown hair was waving about us every which way.

  And God, did her pussy feel like heaven.

  Something I told her over and over again as I professed my undying devotion to her beautiful cunt.

  And hours later, when dawn finally started to kiss the sky, we fell into a breathless heap on the bed, and slipped into an exhausted sleep.

  The next afternoon when we finally woke up, the reality of the situation hit us, and we somehow came to a decision to ignore everything and sweep it under the rug.

  Which we thought would be easy since neither of us remembered much from the night before.

  Looking at our naked, entangled bodies, we thought that was all it was.